


The Day Blair Cleared His Office...

by Bluewolf458



Category: The Sentinel
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-05
Updated: 2014-11-05
Packaged: 2018-02-24 06:02:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,214
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2570804
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bluewolf458/pseuds/Bluewolf458
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The title says it all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Day Blair Cleared His Office...

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Sentinel Thursday, prompt 'lunatic fringe'

The Day Blair Cleared His Office...

by Bluewolf

As he walked along the corridor towards No 307, Jim was aware of a tempting smell, and knew that it was coming from his loft apartment. So - Blair was indeed already home.

He hadn't been sure how long it would take him to clear out his office at Rainier - though he had stated his intention of simply dumping a lot of what was there. "I kept a lot of early drafts of articles - new discoveries meant that they could sometimes be reworked, and it made sense to be able to refer to what I'd had published in the past; but no editor worth his salt is going to consider anything I tried to submit now." He had shrugged as if that was no big deal - and monitoring him, Jim had been unable to detect any signs that Blair was lying to cover the fact that it <i>was</i>, in fact, something that was upsetting him. "So there's no point in cluttering up my room by keeping them. The magazines the finished articles were in are already here, not at Rainier. There are some ungraded papers - I'll leave them, someone else can deal with them. I'll mention that to one of the secretaries.

"Most of the books there are Rainer's, not mine. The room's a storage facility anyway, so I can just leave them in there. If Edwards thinks they're mine that I haven't brought home yet, and dumps them, that's her concern, not mine."

"Isn't it an artefact storage room rather than a book store?" Jim asked.

"Well, yes, but it hasn't been used for any artefacts except my own for years... and the ones I actually value are here - if I've needed one to illustrate a lecture, I've taken it in, then brought it back the same day. What I've kept at Rainier is the sort of thing you can pick up at a cheap market stall in any city. Useful to use as an illustration, but of no real value - if someone had ever broken in and stolen the lot, it would have been a petty annoyance, nothing more. If I leave it, Edwards doesn't have the knowledge to recognize that. She'll just think it's been there since before I started using the room as an office.

"No, it really shouldn't take me very long to dump what I don't want and clear out what I do. All in all, I'd expect to be home early enough to get dinner ready."

And from the appetising smell filling the corridor, Jim knew Blair had been right.

He walked in, hung up his jacket, turned towards the kitchen area... and stopped, staring at his friend, his soon-to-be-official partner.

"Blair?"

"Yes, Jim, it's me."

"But... you said... you said you weren't cutting your hair!" Jim looked in amazement at the neat, short hair that now adorned his friend's head.

"I was beginning to get tired of having it long anyway," Blair admitted. "It hasn't always been long - "

Jim nodded slowly, remembering the first time he had met Naomi. 'Look at your hair,' she'd said, as if it was something of a surprise. 'It's so 60s. You look beautiful.'

"Naomi liked it longish when I was a kid, though I was teased a lot because of it, and I... well, I hated it. She always trimmed it herself when it got a bit long, and to keep it out of my eyes, she gave me a fringe.

"I tell you, Jim, I didn't suit a fringe. I looked like some kind of lunatic with that fringe. So when I went to Rainier, the first thing I did was visit a barber and get it cut. Kept it short until a couple of years before I met you, then... I'm not sure why, but I decided to grow it again.

"But there's no denying that long hair is a bit of a nuisance. And although I said I wasn't cutting it, I knew that I'd have to have short hair for the Academy."

"You do suit having it short," Jim admitted, "but... well... It makes you look different."

"Which will be no bad thing. It'll let me fit in - and believe me, it's no fun trying to fit in when you look different. Bad enough that pretty well everyone else in my class there will be taller and probably younger.

"Oh, I don't really expect anyone at the Academy to recognize me - I doubt any of my fellow trainees will have paid any attention to my press conference, even if they saw it, and though I don't know what Simon told Warren, or what they told the Academy PTB to explain it away, they must have said something convincing to get me accepted there."

"Let's just say that one or two more folk have had to be let in on the facts," Jim said quietly.

"The more people who know... " Blair said.

"Hasn't even doubled, and Warren, Bev Sanchez and Captain Fitchett all realize the need for discretion. The rest of the Academy staff won't be told - if necessary Fitchett will tell them that you gave the press conference to correct misinformation given to the press by an unscrupulous editor who was trying to persuade you that there would be a lot of demand for a book you hadn't even submitted to him. Yes, it's throwing Graham to the wolves, but I think he deserves it, don't you?"

"He did contact me to apologize," Blair murmured.

"But the damage was done. It would have been more to the point if he'd accepted it when you told him it wasn't for publication."

Blair sighed. "In a way I feel sorry for him. He was really just trying to do his job. It would have been more to the point if Naomi had listened to me... " He sighed. "I love her, I really do, but there are times I wish she'd go away on one of her 'quests for enlightenment' and forget to come back. When I was a kid, she wanted me to be self-sufficient pretty well from the time I could walk and talk; she couldn't really deal with a dependent kid. She didn't have the patience. Now I'm an adult, she sees me as 'her baby' who needs her help, her support - even though she'd made sure I would never look to her for it."

Jim wasn't sure what to say in response, but it seemed that Blair didn't need one.

"Dinner'll be ready in about ten minutes," he said, "so if you want to freshen up you've got that long."

Jim took a deep, appreciative, sniffing breath. "I don't recognize the smell... What is it?"

"Cook's secret," Blair said. "I'll tell you this - it's a recipe I got from Megan. Probably not something we can have often, it might not always be possible to get the meat - but I think you'll like it. I did when Megan fed it to me when you were at that conference last month."

Jim looked at him, nodded, and headed for the bathroom. He wasn't totally sure he trusted Megan's cooking skills, but he did trust Blair's, and he was sure the meal would taste as good as it smelled.

 


End file.
